This ninth in a series of illustrated lectures sponsored by The Gardens Trust will explore the impact and legacy of empire, colonialism and enslavement on western garden and landscape history. Our aim is to bring back some of the voices usually absent from this history, to identify and fill gaps in our collective knowledge, and to explore new ways of engaging with the whole history of gardens, landscapes and horticulture.
Using his ethnographic work as co-founder of the Black Men Walking Group, and founder of the charity Sheffield Environmental Movement, Maxwell Ayamba, will shed light on how the notion of race affects use of countryside spaces. He will explore how the racialization of spaces has, as argued by Carolyn Finney, ‘the power to determine who actually participates in environmental related activities, whose voices are heard in environmental debates’. The lecture will consider how narratives of the English countryside rural space are so linked with the concept of Englishness that the presence of minorities can be seen as a dissolution of the English national identity and will examine arguments that membership of racial groups is ingrained in the structures of colonialism and imperialism.
This ticket costs £5, and you may purchase tickets via the link here. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and a link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.
Maxwell A. Ayamba is a PhD research student in Black Studies, School of Languages & Cultural Studies, Department of American & Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham/M4C–AHRC. He is an Environmental Journalist by profession, formerly an Associate Lecturer/Research Associate, Sheffield Hallam University. Founder of the charity Sheffield Environmental Movement (SEM) and Co-Founder of the 100 Black Men Walk for Health Group, which inspired production of the national play ‘Black Men Walking’.
